This seven-game homestand was supposed to be when the Sharks got their act together. Instead, Monday night they dropped a second straight game to a team with fewer points after a 5-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils.

On top of that, San Jose now will be without forward Tommy Wingels and defenseman Justin Braun for a while because of unspecified upper body injuries, coach Todd McLellan disclosed after the game.

There was nothing he could do about that, but there was the equally troubling issue of his team’s performance.

“I’m concerned about our drive right now, the life that we bring to the rink and to the games,” McLellan said. “I don’t know if you want to call it passion, but just that internal drive per person isn’t where it needs to be right now. And these are important games.”

Joe Pavelski and Matt Nieto provided the scoring for San Jose, but that was far from enough to offset New Jersey goals by Jordin Tootoo, former Shark Steve Bernier, Mike Cammalleri, Travis Zajac and Jacob Josefson as backup goalie Alex Stalock saw his season record fall to 5-5-3.

With the memories of Saturday night’s horrid start against the Calgary Flames fresh in their minds, the Sharks were determined to come out stronger.

And they didn’t. San Jose did grab a 1-0 lead at 3:59 of the first period on Pavelski’s goal when he forced a turnover by former teammate Scott Gomez deep in the New Jersey zone.

New Jersey wasn’t deterred.

The Devils evened things up at 15:29 as Tootoo scored on his third whack at the puck from just outside the crease. And 35 seconds later, two former Sharks combined to give New Jersey a 2-1 lead as Gomez atoned for his earlier sin by taking the puck from defenseman Brenden Dillon and feeding it to Bernier, who swept his own rebound past Stalock.

“It’s not the result we wanted in that period. We wanted to keep pushing,” Pavelski said. “We have to understand we’re in a dogfight every night. That’s the bottom line.”

The teams traded goals in the second period.

McLellan created a new third line of Tyler Kennedy, Tomas Hertl and Nieto for the game, and the move paid off as all three forwards touched the puck before Nieto hammered it home to tie the score 2-2.

Unfortunately for San Jose, that was it.

The Devils regained the lead on Cammalleri’s goal at 14:45, a power play tally with Brent Burns sitting in the penalty box for the third time.

Early in the third period, back-to-back penalties by the Devils gave the Sharks a two-man advantage for 12 seconds and a nearly four-minute-long power play, but the Sharks couldn’t take advantage.

“The game is right there for us,” Pavelski said. “We get those power plays, and it’s got to happen. Those are the moments that it’s got to happen. It can’t get away from us toward the end, either.”

But it did. The Devils built their first two-goal advantage when Zajac scored on a rebound at 11:10 with another onetime Shark, Marty Havlat, picking up an assist. And a short-handed goal by Josefson at 14:32 put the game out of reach.

The loss was San Jose’s eighth at home this season — one more than the Sharks suffered all of 2013-14 — and that, too, was worrisome.

Turning things around without Braun or Wingels for an undetermined period only adds to the challenge. Braun left the game after blocking a shot by Cammalleri at 6:39 of the second period; Wingels, McLellan said, was slashed during one of those two San Jose power plays early in the third period.

“Tomorrow’s practice,” McLellan said. “We’ve got to get better.”

Stalock went retro for the game, wearing a plain white face mask and helmet — believed to be the first Sharks goalie to do so since both Mike Vernon and Chris Terreri in the 1997-98 season. The mask is a new one that Stalock plans to have painted over the All-Star break.

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